RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:25 million ounces?I was wondering about that very same thing but it occured to me that tempature might play a part in that. If it's too cold then the solutions used to leach out the gold may not flow properly and so production may be limited and in the case of Red Lake it's well below freezing for at least 4 months of the year.
So I checked out how Malartic processed it's ore and here it is : " Ore is processed at the Canadian Malartic mineral processing complex, which has a 55,000-tonnes/day nominal throughput capacity. Ore is transported to a crushing circuit and the crushed ore is stockpiled in a covered pile, then conveyed to the semi-autogenous grinding circuit followed by three identical ball mills, each in closed circuit with hydro-cyclones. The slurry is thickened to about 50% solids before being fed to the leach tank circuit for conventional cyanidation followed by carbon-in-pulp processing technology. The product is dor bars containing gold and silver. "
" To reduce the environmental impact, tailings are thickened and detoxified prior to being pumped to a tailings impoundment facility. Excess water is mainly re-used in the plant or treated prior to being discharged to the receiving environment. "
Malartic is producing around 660,000 Oz. per year at a cash cost of $ 576 per Oz. which means at the current POG they are netting $ 1,000 per Oz. or
$ 660,000,000 per year for an expected mine life of 13 years which translates into $ 8,580,000,000 in retained earnings over the period.
So that's 8,580,000 Oz. and I think our 4,000 meters of the LP will contain all of that and more and possibly at better grades. Malartic is 1.10 grams !
Sorry I forgot, what's the net present value of $ 8,580,000,000 again ?
flashcash wrote: That low grade would most likely be better off with heap leaching.